JimB: Reposting old stories and burying other writers

[AB]

I know JimB has a long history in the hair fetish community and I respect that, but he’s started reposting already published stories with few or no changes, and it’s pushing a lot of other writers down the page. I’m not the only one who noticed the reposting—see comment on “Kathy’s Barbershop” for one example—and I’m pretty certain I’ve flagged it here before.

[unomine]

Yeah, “Sandy’s New Cut” which they posted recently is by CrystieV on deviantart. Another story they posted a month or so ago–The Royal Barbershop– is from the old (pre-2004) Story Archive, where JimB used to post… but this particular story was by ClipperOne, not JimB. My suspicion, also voiced by someone in the previous thread, is that someone other than the original JimB is using “JimB” as their handle. I certainly don’t know that, but I find that explanation preferable to believing that someone who contributed dozens of stories to both of the prior story archives would decide to treat other authors with this degree of disrespect.

Plagiarism is obviously bad, but I generally just ignore the authors who mostly post spam-like stories, and pay attention to the authors who consistently write stories I enjoy (e.g. FizzyC and Ginger Herten’s stories I always read). But I guess this pattern of plagiarism just feels especially egregious because whoever they are, they are adding their copyright (with pencilled-in dates, often from the nineties) to stories they clearly didn’t write. So they aren’t just copying, they’re explicitly claiming ownership.

(Mild annoyance, aside, I find it amusing that this is the sort of thing that motivates me to interact other folk here, rather than just lurk as is my habit. But so it is.)

(Second parenthetical: I tried posting this to the prior thread a few days ago, and that didn’t stick… and then it don’t show up here when I tried to reply a few seconds ago. So if this comment somehow ends up appearing three times… that’s why.)

[AB]

Well, it’s only showing up here the one time, so you’re good in that regard.

It’s easy to ignore the spammy-er writers if you know that’s what they are, but it’s still annoying to have scroll past them. I worry that new writers to the site will get discouraged because their stuff isn’t getting seen, and new visitors will miss the better content and not come back.

[HSN Admin]

I’m just going to post this here as JimB is mentioned in the title.

Jim has contributed a lot to this site and others over the years.

I’ve had a number of emails alleging plagiarism on his part recently although it’s not a new phenomenon. When this has been brought up with Jim he staunchly denies plagiarising other people’s work counter-claiming that if it had been posted elsewhere then it was plagiarised by them first.

This is almost impossible for me to police. The last time I brought it up with Jim he left the site and deleted all his stories which is probably why they’re being re-added all at once now.

I appreciate it’s infuriating if someone else is taking the credit for your own work, I just don’t see an easy solution to the problem so any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

[AB]

I totally understand the desire to re-post old stuff he removed, but he’s posting duplicate content.

[Echo Sollin]

ADMIN, JimB has 100% stolen my work. His most recent upload “I am not my sister” is MY work that I made four years ago and posted to DeviantArt as well as this site a few years later.

I don’t care what BS copyright lies he uses or if he threatens to pull his content down, you need to do something about this. Besides if his posts are mostly stolen then why does it matter if he removes it? Do you really want this site to be known as one where people’s hard work gets stolen and uploaded to other sites without permission?

I think that kind of negative press is much worse than having one guy delete his account and remove his stolen stories. There are plenty of actually great writers that can create amazing works on this site, if you allow this to continue than why should those creators even continue to post here if Jim’s just going to take it and repost it here later? Literally not even having a story already on this website is enough to not have him steal it, even though he has to know that the actual writer will probably see it.

This is pretty much the ONLY website that still has a solid stream of quality hair stories, don’t let one guy destroy what you’ve created here.

[HSN Admin]

Thanks Echo, I totally get where you’re coming from and we’re dealing with it.

I appreciate your patience.

[MysteriousMoon]

Hi, newly registered to the site, though I’ve been looking at it for a long while. I agree with Echo (also, condolences on the theft). I have some mixed feelings when art, story or otherwise, is reposted with the intent of preservation, in the event it was lost, and personally, I might be more forgiving if people are at least honest that they’re reposting other people’s work, giving credit and all that.

That’s not the case here, though, and HSN Admin, you HAVE to do something about it. Echo’s right, you can’t let this keep happening. Letting this sort of thing roam free discourages people from posting on here at all, and it only encourages this bad behavior. I took a look at “I’m not my sister”, the copy “JimB” put up. Not only did they put the title in all caps (never a good look), but they edited the story, messed with the wording.

I’d call that an attempt to hide the plagiarism or justify it, but you can still tell it’s the same thing. I saw something similar with HairCute/Cadance Flynn on DeviantArt/here. No matter what they say, it’s pure plagiarism, and should not be tolerated, whether a big author’s name is on them or not.

The best option is to kick them out. That’s what the old hair groups did to HairCutie back on DeviantArt. If they will not own up to the obvious, lie about the obvious (“They stole it first!”), will not apologize, and won’t stop, don’t let them post anymore. Yes, all that content will be removed, but look at it this way: Some of that content is duplicate, some of it is on other sites, this might not even be the REAL JimB, as some have suggested, and it will act as a deterrent to future thieves.

No one will want to post on a site with a thief waiting to pick their pockets. I certainly wouldn’t, even if I had a story to post.

And on that note, Cadance Flynn should also be given the boot. She’s already posted stolen stories here.

[HSN Admin]

Hi MysteriousMoon, I understand what you’re saying and we’re trying to reach out to JimB.

It’s clear what he’s doing and it’s not acceptable.

It is being dealt with.

[MysteriousMoon]

That’s wonderful news. Thank you.

[MysteriousMoon]

One more thing I’d like to add. If this hasn’t been reported already, I IDed two more stories “written by JimB” that need to go. These are Jessi’s visit to Aunt Jan Part 1 and 2.

Part 1 is a very poorly plagiarized version of “Jessica’s Visit to Candi Land” by HaircutLover91. While Haircutlover has not reposted that story among their other works here on Hair Story Network, I know for a fact it was posted on the original Haircuttingstories.com, and is also still around on Deviant Art.

Part 2 also needs to go as it’s a sequel to the original, a sequel to a story falsely claimed by JimB and (one presumes) never sanctioned by the original author.

Also, if it helps, I found this via the Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20141021041255/http:/www.haircuttingstories.com/author/JimB.aspx

This is the most recent version of JimB’s author profile I could find on haircuttingstories.com, as close as I could get before the period when the site went through that weird, and not very good redesign (which did not let you see author profiles like this). This is probably also the most complete list of JimB’s actual works. So at least we know what stories should stay on the site.

[HSN Admin]

Thanks MM. This hasn’t been forgotten, it’s just that the process of getting a dialogue going and establishing what may or may not have happened has taken a while.

Our approach to this situation is to establish the relative probability of the story being a re-post and then to remove that story. I think in all of the cases you’ve pointed out it’s clear what’s happened but was worth us trying to give Jim a right to reply.

[Author]

Posts